Since the surgical marker described above typically puts a mark showing a surgical operation site directly on the skin, the composition of an ink for the surgical marker is restricted to a chemical registered in Japanese Pharmacopoeia.
The composition of the ink for the surgical marker is therefore made of a pigment, such as crystal violet, an alcohol-based solvent that solves the pigment, such as isopropyl alcohol, and propylene glycol, which is an auxiliary adjuster that prevents the skin from drying due to the alcohol-based solvent and adjusts the viscosity of the ink (see Technical Literature 1).
In recent years, to prevent infectious diseases particularly due, for example, to a splash of blood or body fluid, surgical operation is performed in some cases with a surgical drape made of polyethylene attached onto a surgical operation site in advance.
In this case, when a surgical marker that puts a mark directly on the skin is used to attempt marking showing a surgical operation site on the drape, the surgical marker ink of related art described above tends to be repelled because the pigment does not penetrate the drape. Further, since the propylene glycol, which is one of the components of the ink, makes it difficult for the ink to dry, the mark undesirably blurs and could be an incorrect mark.
The incorrect mark then adversely affects the surgical operation.